Update: I paid $45 for a 'crisis management' webinar from a brand that just had a huge scandal.

After that big coffee chain had their 'cup size' pricing mess go viral, I saw an ad for a webinar from their head of marketing. It promised to show how they turned the whole thing around. I figured, for forty five bucks, I might learn something useful. The whole hour was just him talking about 'authentic brand voice' and 'listening to your community' without ever saying what they actually did. He showed a single slide with their apology tweet, which everyone had already seen. The funniest part was the chat was full of people asking real questions about the backlash, and he just ignored every single one. It felt like they saw the scandal as a chance to make more money off people trying to learn from their mistake. Has anyone else bought a brand's own 'post-mortem' content and found it was just more PR spin?

3 comments

3 Comments

rubyk8627d ago

Classic. Oh wow, that's the grift of the year right there. They turned their own mess into a side hustle. It's not a lesson, it's just another layer of the same PR talk that got them in trouble. You paid forty five bucks to watch a guy not answer questions. The only real lesson is to never buy the brand's own story about a brand problem.

lauras8327d ago

Remember when my friend paid for that "crisis talk" like @rubyk86 said? Honestly, she came out more annoyed than before because they just spun the same old story. Tbh, the whole thing felt like paying to hear an apology you've already heard.

kevin_harris7826d ago

Yeah, that's the worst feeling, paying just to get the runaround. It turns a bad situation into something that feels insulting. Your friend basically paid for a fancy, live version of their press release.